Menu

Welcome to the Timbers Army’s covert tifo project. Normally, the group of more than 3,500 Portland Timbers soccer fans likes to be seen and heard as it packs the north end of Jeld-Wen Field wielding flags and banners, aka tifos. But designing these tifos is another story. Before each season, about 45 members secretly plan the banners for rival matches. They let me into their undisclosed location, though, as they worked for three days to create this 55-foot cutout of a Douglas fir (a symbol of the Cascadia region) for the Vancouver game on Aug. 25. They also made 3,810 flags for the army. The reward? A 2-1 victory for the Timbers and a Zoom section picture in ESPN The Magazine.